Power BI Architect

Location:
Detroit, MI (Onsite from Day 1, Hybrid Model – 3 Days Onsite)

Our client a leading Detroit-based automotive manufacturer is launching a new production facility and needs a visionary Power BI Architect to design the end-to-end analytics architecture that will power plant-floor decision making from Day 1. This is a rare opportunity to build a greenfield BI platform from scratch in a mission-critical manufacturing environment.

• Real Manufacturing Impact:
  Your architecture will directly influence OEE, quality yields, and throughput on the shop floor
• Cross-Functional Influence:
  Partner with plant engineering, IT, MES teams, and operations leadership
• Hybrid Flexibility: 3 days/week onsite at Detroit facility (no fully remote)

You're likely an ex-industrial engineer, manufacturing engineer, or plant systems specialist who discovered a passion for data and now bridges the gap between physical production and digital analytics. You speak both "plant floor" and "data platform."

• Define the future-state BI architecture balancing corporate IT standards with plant-floor realities (latency, reliability, usability)
• Map manufacturing KPIs (OEE, First Pass Yield, Downtime Tracking, Takt Time) to source systems (MES, PLCs, SCADA, ERP, quality systems)
• Design scalable data models supporting both real-time shop-floor dashboards and historical trend analysis
• Establish governance for metrics definitions across engineering, quality, maintenance, and production teams
• Mentor BI developers on manufacturing context and data modeling best practices
• Collaborate with data engineers on ingestion strategies from operational technology (OT) systems

• 8+ years in BI/analytics with 3+ years in manufacturing operations (automotive preferred)
• Proven architecture experience with Power BI ecosystem (Premium capacity, XMLA endpoints, deployment pipelines)
• Hands‑on understanding of manufacturing data sources: MES (e.g., Plex, Siemens Opcenter), PLC historians, ERP (SAP/Oracle)
• Ability to translate plant-floor concepts (e.g., "line stoppage," "changeover time") into robust data models
• Strong stakeholder management—comfortable presenting architecture tradeoffs to plant managers and IT leadership
• Bachelor's in Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, or related field strongly preferred

• Experience with Azure Data Factory, Synapse, or Fabric for manufacturing data pipelines
• Knowledge of ISA-95 hierarchy and manufacturing information models
• Prior involvement in greenfield plant launches or major manufacturing transformations